System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 173
The sunlight burned fierce and bright.
Across the vast plain, more than twenty knights rode at a full gallop, chasing the small figure ahead of them. Behind the riders, their hooves kicked up something like a sandstorm.
Then the heavens played them a cruel jest. Just as the distance between them and their quarry was shrinking, a wild sea of green suddenly spread out before their eyes.
An ancient forest, endless, crowded with towering old trees.
They watched helplessly as that small figure plunged straight into it.
Fisnet yanked hard on the reins and brought his horse up short at the forest’s edge. Fury flashed across his face in shifting waves.
“Damn it. We were so close. Give me two more minutes and I would’ve had her.”
Krause rode up beside him and shot him an incredulous look. “Why stop? Her Highness is right there.”
“In there...” Fisnet let out a breath and stared into the deep green gloom. “That is the Forest of Brokilon. You have all heard of the place, I am sure, and of the tales told about it. Brokilon is forbidden ground in the North. Humans enter and die, especially men.”
Krause raised a brow, pressed a hand to his throbbing temple, and sneered. “Viceroy, let me remind you of something. If we lose the princess, do you think you’ll still be breathing? Even if King Evel is magnanimous enough not to pursue the matter, Queen Calanthe never will.”
In that instant, Fisnet’s heart turned cold as ice.
“To the devil with forbidden ground. Even if it is a dragon’s lair, we go in.”
At last Fisnet fully grasped the shape of his situation. Princess of Cintra escaping during an escorted journey was already a failure on his part. If he could not recover her, it would only deepen the offense. That meant death a dozen times over.
If he stayed out, he was dead. Better to go in and gamble.
With that thought, he hesitated no longer and led his twenty-odd broad-shouldered guards into the forest.
The next moment, the thick scent of earth and greenery rushed over him and sent a shiver through his brain, filling him with the strange conviction that his entire life was about to change because of the decision he had made today.
What they did not know was that another figure had already entered the forest ahead of them, following the same trail.
...
The Forest of Brokilon.
The vegetation here was ancient and luxuriant.
Most of the trees had stood for centuries. Even the sunlight filtering down through the canopy was swallowed by young shrubs and low ferns before it could reach far.
The ground was carpeted with fallen twigs and dead leaves.
Insects crept and rustled in every corner. Dew-bright spiderwebs were strung between the branches. Lizards, rabbits, roe deer, and other small beasts peeked through the gaps in the undergrowth.
Everywhere there was the smell of animals, damp earth, and fresh green growth.
But the Witcher had no mind to admire the scene. The moment he entered the forest, he seemed to become a great cat, bent low, walking on the balls of his feet, his breathing thinning to almost nothing.
Across the outside of his light leather armor and gray cloak, the eggshell-thin pale yellow shimmer of the Quen shield flowed now and then.
He knew very well the heaps of blood concealed beneath the thriving face of such a forest.
A moment later, the Witcher suddenly stopped and glanced down at the thick humus of pine needles and moss beneath his feet. There, sprawled amid a crawling mass of ants and grotesque insects, lay a human corpse.
Perhaps a poacher, perhaps a wood thief, perhaps simply some fool who had wandered into the forest by mistake. Roy crouched and picked up an arrow lying among the bones.
It was crudely made, little more than pheasant tail feathers, willow wood, and a sharpened stone point, without so much as a trace of metal.
That did not make it any less deadly. It could still punch through fragile human flesh and kill.
“Dryad workmanship,” Roy thought.
And Brokilon was their domain.
These were not monsters like leshens, but kin to the elves, intelligent beings with green skin and forms much like humans. They styled themselves guardians of the forest and loathed human poachers and woodcutters. Better to kill ten innocents than let one guilty one go, that was their way.
It was a race of women alone.
As for their leader, Eithne, her attitude toward human males was simple. Kill ninety-nine out of a hundred, keep only the strongest as breeding stock.
Thankfully, in most cases the dryads did not shoot women, especially young, harmless human girls like Ciri, because such girls had other uses.
Putting the arrow away, Roy continued cautiously forward and opened his Witcher Senses, catching every trace the girl had left behind, above all the faint scent of her.
But the complexity of the forest, the sheer number of obstacles, exceeded anything he had imagined. It was almost a labyrinth. Even two people within arm’s reach might pass each other by, screened by the plants.
That slowed the search enormously.
Every few paces, the Witcher had to carve the mark of the Viper School into a nearby trunk to keep from losing his way.
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